Sometimes, a part of the body ages more quickly than others, like the brain (dementia), the kidneys (renal failure), the joints (arthritis) or the bone marrow.
The bone marrow is a marvelous factory, producing a million red blood cells (RBCs) every two seconds. Through genetic damage from cancer treatments, cigarettes, chemicals or unknown factors, a “broken factory” only makes a million red blood cells every three to six seconds, leading to chronic anemia and often transfusion dependence. This is usually termed myelodysplasia or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), though the terms “refractory anemia” or “preleukemia” are sometimes used. Some but not all MDS cases lead to leukemia, but most look for a rough road ahead.
Patients are often not in a good situation for curative bone marrow transplantation. For some, an agent called luspatercept can encourage the “factory” to finish out partly developed RBCs, and erythropoietin – a natural simulator of RBCs – can create more RBC precursors, leading (hopefully) to more RBCs at the end of the line.
